IndyBlog

School lunches threaten national security

I tried to tell my mom back in grade school that school lunches were hazardous.

She didn't believe me. And so, five days a week, I was forced to eat spaghetti the consistency of paste and hamburgers so soggy and sticky that they clung to the Styrofoam trays even when you turned them upside-down.

Not that I ever think about it.

So anyway, I have news for my mother: I WAS RIGHT!

Today, MSNBC ran an Associated Press story about a group of retired military officers who are calling school lunches a national security threat. Not just because they're gross, but because they're fattening. So fattening, in fact, that the old guys think the nation may be raising a generation that'll be too porky to meet the military's physical fitness requirement.

The story quotes retired Navy Rear Adm. James Barnett Jr. as saying, "When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice."

The irony here is that during World War II, kids weren't getting enough to eat, and our military was turning away lots of recruits because they were malnourished or had stunted growth. That's actually part of the reason why the school lunch program was created.